Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD joins us to review the mistakes, misrepresentations, and institutional barriers at the CDC and other public health institutions that hindered our response to the COVID-19 pandemic - along with the tactical steps we must take to defeat the next pandemic. We also discuss reforming the FDA approval process to allow medical innovation and why the drug price controls found in the Democrats' HR3 legislation will stop the next breakthrough drugs from emerging.

Scott Gottlieb, MD, is the author of "Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic." He is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. From 2017 to 2019 he served as the 23rd commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Gottlieb is also a special partner with the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates and serves on the boards of Pfizer, Illumina, Aetion, and Tempus. Follow him on Twitter at @ScottGottliebMD.

This episode originally premiered on August 25, 2020.

Historian Amity Shlaes joins us for a new look at the origins and aftermath of LBJ's Great Society – the massive federal poverty-reduction programs of the 1960's. The debates in that era were the same debates today: socialism vs capitalism, public-sector vs private-sector, victimhood vs self-empowerment. And the cost of these programs led to devastating outcomes which are still unfolding to this day.

Amity Shlaes' most recent book is Great Society: A New History. She is the author of four New York Times bestsellers: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man/Graphic, Coolidge, and The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy. Miss Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and the Manhattan Institute's Hayek Book Prize, and serves as a scholar at the King's College. A former member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, Miss Shlaes published a weekly syndicated column for more than a decade, appearing first in the Financial Times, then in Bloomberg. Follow her on Twitter at @AmityShlaes.

There are a lot of reasons being thrown around for the rising price of gasoline – inflation, COVID ending, Biden's attacks on oil and gas, decisions by OPEC – but what's the truth? Petroleum economist Karr Ingham joins us to shed light on the current state of the domestic and global oil markets, regulatory uncertainties, and geopolitical trade wars that are affecting your costs at the pump.

Karr Ingham is an Amarillo, Texas economist, and is the owner and President of InghamEcon, LLC, an economic analysis and research firm specializing in statewide, regional, and metro area economics, and oil & gas/energy economics. Since 2003, he has served as the Consulting Petroleum Economist for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. He is the creator of the Alliance Texas Petro Index, a tool for tracking growth rates and industry cycles in the Texas oil and gas exploration & production sector, as well as the Alliance Texas Permian Basin Petroleum Index. He is a member of the Texas Comptroller's Economic Roundtable, a group of statewide and national economists convened to offer economic insight to the Comptroller in terms of the general condition of the Texas economy and the ongoing revenue outlook. He also co-chairs the Supply and Demand Committee of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).

You probably didn't read the recent United Nations IPCC 4,000 page report on global warming impacts. But you definitely saw the media headlines about it screaming, "A Code Red for Humanity!" But the report did not predict any catastrophic, extinction level events, and if you ask Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, it was actually quite reasonable. Bjorn returns to break down what the report actually says, the truth about heat wave and hurricane trends, and give reasons why we can all be optimistic about Earth's future.

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a think-tank that researches the smartest ways to do good. For this work, Lomborg was named one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. His numerous books include "False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet", "The Skeptical Environmentalist", "Cool It", "How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place", "The Nobel Laureates' Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World 2016-2030" and "Prioritizing Development: A Cost Benefit Analysis of the UN's SDGs". Follow Dr. Lomborg on Twitter at @BjornLomborg.

Two big trends have radically transformed space exploration over the past decade: the privatization of the space industry thanks to Elon Musk and the rise of the Chinese space program. What does this mean for NASA's mission in the 21st century? Are we on the verge of geopolitical battles with China over Moon territories? Why does Elon maybe want to nuke Mars? Space journalist and author Eric Berger joins us to look at what we can expect as humanity enters the next great era of space travel.

Eric Berger is the author of "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX." He is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering SpaceX, NASA, and everything beyond. Follow him on Twitter at @SciGuySpace.

Is there an infrastructure crisis in America? Would we really need $1.5 trillion in new spending to solve it? Dr. Ed Glaeser joins us to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly of the new infrastructure bill, and help debunk the magical thinking among Democrats that if we just spend massive amounts of money on rail lines, we'll revitalize stagnant economies.

Ed Glaeser is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1992. He regularly teaches microeconomic theory and, occasionally, urban and public economics.

Glaeser's research focuses on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He has published dozens of papers on cities, economic growth, and law and economics. Glaeser is the author of Cities, Agglomeration, and Spatial Equilibrium (2008); Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (2012); and coauthor of Rethinking Federal Housing Policy: How to Make Housing Plentiful and Affordable (2008). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Taking orders from terrorists, silencing political opponents, and implementing unconstitutional COVID mandates ad infinitum. When a political ideology with no limiting principles controls our institutions, the inevitable outcome is tyranny. Ben Shapiro returns to show us how the authoritarian left is creating a grave danger to our republic and free societies across the globe, and what we can do to stop it.

Ben Shapiro is the NY Times bestselling author of the new book "The Authoritarian Moment," host of "The Ben Shapiro Show," and Editor Emeritus of www.dailywire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @benshapiro.

Andy Stumpf joins us to help unpack the complex dynamics of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, its ramifications for America's national security, and what he learned as a Navy SEAL on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq during the most dangerous era of the War on Terror.

Andy Stumpf is the host of the podcast series "Cleared Hot." He first deployed in 2002 as a member of SEAL Team Six. During his career he completed 10 deployments and executed hundreds of combat operations throughout the world. He was medically retired from service in 2013. Follow Andy on Twitter at @AndyStumpf77 and Instagram at @andystumpf212.

Revisiting our interview from last year with General H.R. McMaster where we asked the question: what does America gain by maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan? General McMaster brings decades of experience on the geopolitical stage to answer this question along with how we should address the escalating tensions with Russia and China.

General McMaster is a retired Army Lieutenant General and former National Security Advisor. He is the author of "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World." He served in Cold War Europe and led the Eagle Troop of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment during the first Gulf War. In 2004, he led the 3rd Armored Calvary in Tal Afar, Iraq, where he pioneered a new counter insurgency strategy. From February 2017 to April 2018, General McMaster served as National Security Advisor to the President. Follow him on Twitter at @LTGHRMcMaster.

This episode originally premiered on September 27, 2020.

"nO mORe EnDleSs wArs!" When your entire foreign policy is built upon an emotional slogan, this is what you end up with: a new terrorist safe haven and millions of women and children now under the rule of the Taliban. Dan and Rep. Mike Waltz react to the news that Afghanistan has fallen.